Vacant land as an environmental resource for conservation and community building

Speaker

Dr. Mary M. Gardiner is a Professor in the Department of Entomology at The Ohio State University and Co-Director of the OSU Environmental Science Graduate Program. Her research focuses on the ecology and conservation value of urban greenspace, with a focus on vacant land. Vacant land is common within legacy cities, which are characterized by long-term economic disinvestment and shrinking populations. Although vacant land is viewed as blight, it represents an opportunity to reclaim greenspace in the built environment. For instance, vacant land provides the bulk of tree-derived ecosystem services to lower income neighborhoods including atmospheric pollutant removal, cooling, and stormwater infiltration. Further, vacant land can be managed to aid urban arthropod conservation. The Gardiner Lab found that 30% of Ohio’s bee fauna forage within these habitats. The NSF-funded Cleveland Pocket Prairie Project fueled much of this work by establishing a network of 64 vacant lots across the city of Cleveland, Ohio. Over many years, the environmental benefits derived from vacant land were compared among lots containing urban spontaneous vegetation, flowering lawns, or mixtures of native Ohio wildflowers and grasses. The Gardiner Lab has published 76 peer-reviewed publications and been awarded $8.1 M in grant support, with current funding from the NSF, USDA, and the MITRE Foundation. Mary is also a State Specialist in Extension and is active in the Ohio Master Gardener Volunteer Program. She has advised 23 graduate students and postdocs and teaches graduate courses in presentation skills and grant writing.

Cornell IPM Academic Seminars

This event is part of the Cornell Integrated Pest Management academic seminar series which is designed to increase awareness of new research and techniques that advance Integrated Pest Management (IPM) and its adoption in all types of pest management settings.